The "Scientific Method" is completely wrong. Strangely the Ivory Tower hierophants who claim it is the highest principal, do not follow it.
So, do Modern Materialistic Scientists believe in the "scientific method" or is rule for thee and not for me? Does it apply to everything, except to the sacred texts, with the words from Newton, Einstein and Hawking's?
Scientific Method Image, from Wikipedia
See this pretty, simple, circle, with what seems like one logical step after another? Well, it falls apart because all the assumptions it is built upon, are not true. It isn't really logical, nor is it an actual path that scientists follow.
Lets break down each step:
Observation
It is shown that two people can view the same thing happen, and have two very different stories. Scientists just pass this off as people having bad memories. However, although it is sorta true, (people have notoriously bad memories) it is more true that different people are actually seeing different events.
Quantum Physics experiments show that the observer affects the experiment outcomes. In the double slit experiments, it is shown that adding an observer changes a wave/probability pattern into a photon/electron/particle. In other experiments, the observers expectation affect what outcomes there are.
Modern Materialistic Science ASSUMES that the world out there, separate from us, and that it is physical and unchanging. Well, it is not. And just the observation of it changes it. So, future experiments will need to have the observer write things down like, what were they expecting, and what their mood was.
Question
We really do not know how to ask questions.
Most people would argue with this, saying, "I know how to make questions! Why is the sky blue?" However, that is not a very good question. The sky is blue because that is the color of the sky. You could say it is the definition of the color blue. However, ancient texts describe the sea as purple, the color of wine. Just to throw more confusion into the mix.
Better questions get better answers. Better questions leads to the truth about what really needs to be tested.
Here's one: If space is an empty vacuum, what are photons doing out there?
Hypothesis
Hey frank, i just came up with this great story about the universe. It was all inside an egg, laid by the universe-bird, and then it hatched, and blam, spiral galaxies everywhere. Many people would just dismiss this story, but it is, actually, written in some ancient texts. And it is only because the "Big Bang" is the current accepted story of this time.
And like our questions, we do not create very good hypothesis. If we do tests, and find out the hypothesis is wrong, do we know if it is wrong because our world view is wrong, or our test is wrong, or our hypothesis is wrong? We don't. We don't test it. We don't even know how to test it.
Experiment
As stated above, our experiments are questionable at best. Was it us? or was it the world?
And sometime soon we will happen onto the knowledge that science is not the same everywhere. The speed of light is a local phenomena, and is not necessarily the same anywhere else.
The Michelson-Morley Experiment is a good example of a bad experiment. They barely took enough measurements to call it an experiment. And then they found something, but not as much as they expected, and so, called it nothing. FURTHER! they only tested one model of the aether, and so the experiment is not at all conclusive. And THEN! they ignored future findings which showed you got different readings at different elevations… just not good.
Analysis
There is so much bias in the analysis. If we are looking for a certain result, and we get that certain result, was it because we expected it?
It is really hard to go further, when all your hard work gave you just the result you wanted and were expecting. You succeed! Case closed!
Conclusion
This is where we fail the most. The conclusion should be seen as a very tentative state. We are working with moving targets and shifting scales.
We call it the "THEORY of relativity" but we do not treat it as a theory. We do not throw it out when its assumptions are disproven. And this is because many people's egos are on the line. It is what many scientists are so proud they were able to learn, and it would be an assault on their teacher to say it wasn't so.
The "Scientific Method" doesn't really work for people
The "Scientific Method" also lets us down in that people do not think that way. They do not work that way. This is not how ideas come about. People's brains don't work that way. We should have tools that actually help us. Not try to break our brains.
Some people get hypothesis pop into their heads, then they need to go and observe, and then test.
Others have questions, and then look for theories that could explain it.
Science is a majorly recursive process. You could say that we start at both ends, and work towards the middle. And, as such, the picture above should not be a circle with arrows going only one way. If accurately describing the current "Scientific Method" it should show all kinds of loops, and loops within loops, and arrows that go back and forth.
In the future, we will have better tools, but this isn't it.
We really do not follow the "Scientific Method". We do not throw out theories with they are disproven. We just keep working with the theory until it works again. And sometimes, rarely, we come up with a new theory, and dump the old one.
Humans really work with iterative processes. So much of our world is derivative. Although amazing architect came up with Falling Water, most architects just design the same thing all other architects design. And, once in a while, someone architect actually comes up with something new, and sometimes, that is adopted as the new design to follow.
We both need to let go of ownership of ideas, because we are really, all, building off of each others' ideas. And we need to incorporate how we think into the tools we use to understand our reality. When we do that, we will become much better scientists.